Up is Still Up, Down is Still Down

There's the "constitutional option". I've been wading through a Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy article. Robert Byrd laid it out in 1979:

"The Constitution in article I, section 5, says that each House shall
determine the rules of its proceedings. Now we are at the
beginning of Congress. This Congress is not obliged to be bound
by the dead hand of the past.

The first Senate, which met in 1789, approved 19 rules by a
majority vote. Those rules have been changed from time to time . .
. . So the Members of the Senate who met in 1789 and approved
that first body of rules did not for one moment think, or believe, or
pretend, that all succeeding Senates would be bound by that
Senate. . . . It would be just as reasonable to say that one Congress
can pass a law providing that all future laws have to be passed by
two-thirds vote. Any Member of this body knows that the next
Congress would not heed that law and would proceed to change it
and would vote repeal of it by majority vote. [I]t is my belief—which has been supported by rulings of Vice Presidents of both parties and by votes of the Senate—in essence upholding the power and right of a majority of the Senate toc hange the rules of the Senate at the beginning of a new Congress."

After many pages of historical analysis, the authors conclude:

"Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution empowers the Senate
to “determine the Rule of its Proceedings.” In 1917 and on many
occasions since 1917, the Senate has debated whether this
constitutional rulemaking power allows a simple majority to alter the
Senate’s Standing Rules at will. At least four times, changes to the
Senate Standing Rules were influenced by attempts to use the
constitutional option. And throughout Senate history, a simple
majority has changed Senate procedures governing debate by setting
precedents or adopting Standing Orders that altered the operation of
the Standing Rules without amending their actual text. Over two
centuries, the Senate’s constitutional rulemaking power has been
exercised in a variety of ways to change Senate procedures. As
Senate parliamentary process further evolves, this power plainly will
be exercised again. At issue is when, how, and to what effect."

It would take courage and a willingness to take risks,. And it might not work. Or it might work too well and come back to haunt Democrats in a Republican administration. But it appears we have reached total gridlock, with no method of moving obstructionists off their rock. Without a functioning legislature, we're screwed for the long run. For better and for worse, government needs to implement legislation that expresses, through elected representatives and however imperfectly translated, the will of the people.